When loading a track or folder by whatever means, it instantly loads in to Winamp and plays, replacing any existing playlist. That's perfect. But if I attempt to repeat that action within a second or two it queues it in the playlist instead of replaces the playlist for instant play. It might sound insignificant but for my purposes it's a HUGE problem. There are other players that don't have this problem but Winamp is much more suited to my needs because of how brilliantly responsive it is, and how seamlessly it crossfades between tracks.

If there are mods and solutions out there then I have no idea what to search for. Please advise. Thanks a lot.

I'm using a program to execute Winamp.exe with a folder as an argument. I've just tested it with a single track and it does the same. BUT, I just tried loading music and folders rapidly with explorer as normal and it plays them instantly as desired (I imagine that's what you were doing while trying to recreate the effect). It seems to do the annoying queue thing when rapidly called from a program other than explorer. I can't imagine why it would bother detecting it's shell and changing it's behaviour...

PS... The music type etc doesn't make a difference. I've tried it with every contemporary format under the sun. MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, APE, and probably even WAV. They're not all tracks from the same album or anything. They're from various sources, many myself, so file format or metadata isn't a part of it. Also, my Winamp is 5.551.

Why don't I explain what this is all about. This isn't important. It's incase anyone's curious about why I need such specific behaviour.

I've got a program running all the time which responds to hotkeys and plays a folder in winamp. In shuffle mode it picks a random track from that folder to play, which is exactly what I want. I'm not good enough a programmer to handle the music playing myself. It would be a huge resource drain. The hotkey system has variables and mode setting and all kinds of compex elements. It's likely I'll press a wrong key combination and trigger the wrong playlist. Which is fine, but to keep it simple I'll say think of me like a DJ. I do live presentations and I need the audio to discreetly react instantly. If I load the wrong track accidently, I have to wait a whole embarrassing second or two before I can load the correct playlist, otherwise it is merely queued and the delay is reset.

I've tried other players even though I've been using Winamp exclusively for a decade. I've found one that came close but, like everything else, there's always ONE thing wrong. In the closest runner-up to Winamp, playing a folder or playlist on shuffle always plays the first track first and THEN randomises. That's no good. That's a very common oversight for music players. Sigh.

Still no answer. Forums are all pretense. Can't remember actually getting a solution from a forum in my life. People go there to get solutions for their problems, not provide solutions for other people's problems. I think if tech-support forums ever work then it must run entirely on nerdy sense-of-superiority. Kindness is a myth.